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Progressive Conservatives will choose a new leader next May with hopes of wresting power from Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals in the 2018 election.

Tory officials met Sunday to hammer out rules for a contest that will conclude with a May 9 convention to be held at a Greater Toronto Area venue still to be determined.

“The party wants to move on and select a permanent leader,” PC president Richard Ciano said after the meeting.

Interim Leader Jim Wilson has been serving since Tim Hudak stepped down after leading the Tories to defeat in the June 12 election.

The leadership rules will officially be in effect Nov. 8 and Tories who have purchased a membership by Feb. 28 will be able to cast a preferential ballot in an advance poll on May 3 or May 7.

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Candidates have to pay a $75,000 registration fee plus a $25,000 refundable deposit to the party and must register before noon on Jan. 30.

So far, two hopefuls have joined the race: front-runner Christine Elliott, 59, the MPP for Whitby-Oshawa and the third-place finisher in the 2009 leadership behind Hudak and former MPP Frank Klees; and MPP Monte McNaughton, 37, (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex).

MPP Vic Fedeli, 58, (Nipissing) will launch his campaign in the heart of the King-Bay financial district on Wednesday.

Lisa MacLeod, 39, the firebrand MPP from Nepean-Carleton, is keeping her powder dry until late next month or early November.

Backbench Conservative MP Patrick Brown, 36, (Barrie) is expected to make the jump to provincial politics next Sunday. It is unclear when — or if — he will resign his federal seat to commit to Queen’s Park.

Tory insiders say that while Brown is an excellent organizer with deep ties to many South Asian cultural communities, his lack of a provincial constituency could be a hindrance.

Sources close to Prime Minister Stephen Harper say the three-term Barrie member will likely not be allowed to remain in the Conservative caucus after becoming a provincial leadership candidate.

“Patrick will have to pick a lane,” confided one insider privy to discussions with Harper, whose federal Tories are headed to the polls next year and need to hold Ontario seats like Barrie in order to retain their majority government.

The leadership spending limit will be $1.25 million and, after the first $100,000 raised, a 20 per cent tithe must be paid to the PC Party, which still has a $7.6 million debt from the June election.

Ciano said the race will generate some enthusiasm for the Tories.

“Five candidates are more than we’ve had in recent history. They’re already very active and that’s exciting to see,” the PC president said.

While the provincial Conservatives have governed Ontario for 50 of the past 71 years, they have lost four consecutive elections to the Liberals since 2003.

Pre-election polls had suggested Hudak’s Tories could eke out at least a minority government last spring.

Tory candidates insisted they were blindsided by the commitment that was announced May 9 at a country club in Barrie, which cost well-regarded rookie PC incumbent Rod Jackson his seat to Liberal Ann Hoggarth.

Wynne’s minority Liberals ended up winning a majority government.

Hudak loyalists have denied caucus members were left in the dark about the 100,000-job scheme, which was part of an austerity push to eliminate Ontario’s $12.5 billion deficit by 2016-17.

They claim that as many as a dozen of the then 37 PC MPPs knew the party would promise to reduce the number of teachers, nurses and bureaucrats. Tory MPPs dispute that.

“Even though Ontarians gave a big thumbs down to the radical PC agenda in the last election, the only people who don’t seem to get it are the PC leadership candidates,” Del Duca said in a statement.

“While they’re tripping over themselves running from the 100,000 job cuts that they all embraced during the election, they still support radical, right-wing PC policies that would hurt families and kill jobs,” he said.

Del Duca pointed out Elliott, Fedeli, MacLeod and McNaughton all campaigned on the plan and Brown was on the hustings with Hudak when he unveiled the policy in Barrie.

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